Colour:
The 2024 Plenarius shines with a radiant golden-brass colour.
Aroma:
Its aromas are both captivating and enigmatic, offering a symphony of scents that include dried apricot, marmalade, lavender, lemon, and the subtle earthiness of cold tea.
Palate:
On the palate, the wine is equally mesmerising, weaving together a harmonious interplay of sweet and dry elements in both flavour and texture. A silky oiliness is balanced by fine, chalky phenolics, while layers of honey, minerality, and ripe white stone fruits unfold. A faint medicinal note adds intrigue, lingering gracefully and contributing to an exceptionally long, memorable finish. This is a wine that dares to be different—funky, edgy, and utterly compelling. Its intricate blend of aromas, flavours, and textures creates a provocative and enchanting drinking experience, offering a thought-provoking and alluring Viognier.
Recommended Drinking: Within 12-18 months from release.
The grapes were harvested in the cool of the night on March 1st. They were then destemmed into an open top fermenter. It was treated like a red wine with hand pump-overs morning and night to circulate the fermenting juice through the skins extracting flavour and subtle tannin/phenolics. The must was entirely wild yeast fermented with absolutely no additions. The wine was on skins for 7 days with ferment temperature ranging up to 27 degrees Celsius. At dryness the must was drained, and the wine was filled to seasoned French oak hogsheads. It underwent natural malolactic fermentation in barrels and was matured for 11 months on lees prior to racking for bottling with zero additions, bottling as 100% grapes
Vintage 2024 was excellent. Winter and Spring were drier and slightly warmer than average leading to earlier budburst, flowering and veraison. Summer welcomed refreshing rainfall, average temperatures, with no extreme heat, ensuring the vines flourished with their very balanced crop load and apt canopy leading to steady ripening. Autumn began warm and finished mildly, continuing the consistent ripening of grapes until harvest was finished in mid-Autumn. The yields are overall average, and the quality is superb.
Plenarius is from a single vineyard of Viognier on the Kalleske property at Moppa. The vines are low yielding, and soil is shallow sand with clay subsoil.